[HN Gopher] Toronto swaps Google-backed, not-so-smart city plans...
___________________________________________________________________
Toronto swaps Google-backed, not-so-smart city plans for people-
centred vision
Author : mgbmtl
Score : 197 points
Date : 2021-03-13 12:36 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theguardian.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theguardian.com)
| cperciva wrote:
| When politicians say "people-centred vision", they really mean
| "lobbyist and special interest group centred vision". To them,
| "people" just means "whoever shouts the loudest".
| patcon wrote:
| Most of the work of good public consultation facilitators is
| (1) stopping those loud/frustrated/opinionated/entrenched
| people from distorting process, and (2) allowing many people to
| feel heard. (This is in addition to, of course, the more
| obvious: actually integrating that feedback, repeating it back,
| and acting on it.)
|
| Perhaps surprisingly with (2), public consultations are
| sometimes almost like public therapy -- allowing people to feel
| heard so they can then take a step forward, even if it's not a
| step fully in the direction they prefer. People can make better
| compromises when they feel heard, they just need to be
| contained so they don't take speaking time/attention from
| everyone else.
|
| Disclosure: highly engaged in public consultation process,
| civic tech, and consensus-building technology through my
| interest in https://github.com/compdemocracy/polis
| cperciva wrote:
| In Canada, "public consultations" tend to be far from good.
| They're almost always held -- or rather, were pre-COVID --
| during regular business hours, with very predictable effects
| on demographics. The last one I attended had over 100 people;
| about 60% were retirees, and around 15% were college
| students. I was the only male between the ages of 25 and 60
| -- because working-age males overwhelmingly spend their
| weekday afternoons at work.
| ArkanExplorer wrote:
| The biggest driver of poor housing affordability in Canada is
| immigration, with 300,000 people migrating to the country
| annually.
|
| Here are the top 10 migrant sources:
|
| Philippines
|
| India
|
| China
|
| Iran
|
| Pakistan
|
| United States
|
| Syria
|
| United Kingdom
|
| France
|
| South Korea
|
| Migrants from the poorer countries on this list are moving to
| Canada to undercut the wages and conditions of local workers,
| whilst driving up the cost of housing and increasing congestion
| for infrastructure and Government services.
|
| Meanwhile, the most common response for Canadians when asked
| about immigration is that they want it reduced.
|
| It seems like the entire Anglosphere - USA, UK, Canada,
| Australia, NZ - has lost control of its borders, and the populace
| is now being completely sold out - for the benefit of capitalists
| and landowners.
| SyzygistSix wrote:
| I thought it was foreign investment in property that skewed the
| market toward high end, and often vacant, investment
| properties?
| jjmarinho wrote:
| Too bad that from 2010 to 2020 Toronto experienced its lowest
| population growth ever. But go on and keep believing that it's
| somehow the immigrants fault...
|
| https://www.macrotrends.net/cities/20402/toronto/population
| u678u wrote:
| Vancouver and Toronto really suffer because they're the warmest
| parts of a huge cold country and everyone wants to live there.
| Maybe global warming will mean more people will want to live
| further North or inland. Ideally the government would try harder
| like not tax people who live in smaller cities.
| 29083011397778 wrote:
| Let me start with the reminder that global warming means wider,
| less predictable swings. Not just warmer weather.
|
| But more to the point, taxing people less doesn't always help.
| Alberta, with it's no provincial sales tax, is a place I'm
| leaving for the exact reason that there's no money for
| infrastructure or services.
|
| Without taxes there are no backstops for me to fall back on
| (like a robust transit system). To me, that's more financial
| insecurity, not more.
| iandanforth wrote:
| Pet peeve, articles that use "untested" as a critism when testing
| something is the point.
| monktastic1 wrote:
| It may be the point for _Google_ , but not for _Toronto
| citizens_ , who surely want a better city more than they want
| to be a science experiment. I'd say the usage is purposeful and
| correct.
| concordDance wrote:
| Any new idea has to start somewhere. We'll eternally stay at
| local maxima without experimentation.
| monktastic1 wrote:
| This is still missing the point. The sentence is about
| _Toronto 's current priorities_. While the world surely
| benefits from guinea pigs, _any individual guinea pig may
| not want to be one_.
| routerl wrote:
| You're right. But you're missing an argument about why
| Toronto should be the one to take that hit.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| This is a city with real people in it, not a new gadget Google
| can throw out of the window like half of its projects two years
| later.
|
| When it comes to the physical environment of people 'untested'
| in particular of the tech sector variety is a very legitimate
| criticism in an of itself.
| patcon wrote:
| Nothing wrong with "testing" imho. But like in any grand real-
| world experiment -- except tech, which has split from science
| in terms of ethics norms, perhaps in its own meta-experiment of
| sorts -- in experiments, the public should have ability to
| consent or withhold consent to be tested on. The Sidewalk
| Toronto public consultations did not have a way to say "no" and
| withhold consent.
|
| The consultation was of the format of "getting to yes", which
| is all-too-common but the low bar for public consultations.
| It's the sort that property developers run hand-in-hand with
| cities who really want to just build something. Initiatives
| running meaningful and fair public consultations don't do that.
|
| tl;dr - The fact that there was no lever to decline to
| participate was a major criticism of the whole effort.
| routerl wrote:
| The point is to improve our city and its residents' quality of
| life, actually.
|
| Edit for clarity: This was a project _of the city of Toronto_.
| It is _only incidentally_ an Alphabet project _as well_. The
| City of Toronto has no fiduciary obligation to Alphabet's
| shareholders.
| patcon wrote:
| This was a big point of its critics: the City was ostensibly
| a partner, but had very poor literacy and so Sidewalk Labs
| was essentially taking lead. When the City did seek their own
| third-party supports, they naively sought only supportive
| tech partners. There were whole classes of consultants they
| never engaged with, as they were naively focussed on sealing
| the deal.
|
| I read it as maybe something like Bay of Pigs groupthink (for
| which the term was invented to explain):
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glUUmsBb_58
|
| They lacked certain diversity of views that would have
| allowed them to better see where this plan was flawed. They
| got caught up in their good intentions.
| motohagiography wrote:
| Planners think the problem is a lack of planning, but the things
| that make the city great are the unplanned ones. Most desirable
| places in the city are the ones that were mostly left alone. It
| has become a city of busybodies and corrupt developers. The
| growth in Toronto is going to come from foreign capital flight,
| not endogenous growth, and it these days it might as well be an
| extended international airport where people and capital just pass
| through. We should rename it Greater Pearson.
|
| The planning we have today has been anti-restaurant, anti-patio,
| anti-car, anti-nightlife, and anti-street-life. Street level
| retail is dominated by money laundering operations run out of
| nail salons, massage parlours, and tattoo shops, and the rents
| are so expensive it's too much risk to start something unique, so
| we get a bunch of overcapitalized global franchises on every
| corner. The condos are just cells masquerading as display cases
| for shallow consumer lifestyles for people who won't have kids.
|
| The best possible solution to the waterfront would be to fence it
| off and leave a few thousand storage containers for people find
| and inhabit, and in 10 years you will have a real local culture
| based on an equilibrium of desire.
| Wolfenstein98k wrote:
| Regarding that headline: False dichotomy.
| alfl wrote:
| Never gonna happen, because gridlock politics, but I hope it
| does. Source: am local.
| rubyist5eva wrote:
| As someone that lives in Toronto and is moving out in the middle
| of the month to go back home near family. The idea that Toronto
| is going to focus on "affordability" is laughable. It's one of
| the most expensive cities to live in in the world, and the
| incompetent city council, mayor and all the way up to the
| provincial government are doing absolutely everything they can to
| keep it that way - mostly without even realizing it. They have
| absolutely no clue what they are doing or the basics of market
| economics.
|
| The federal government is also considering to step in to try and
| "solve" the problem, and this only means the problem is going to
| get worse.
|
| I am not joking when I say that when the Canadian real estate
| markets crash - it is going to be absolutely disastrous for this
| country as it is basically the tent-pole keeping the entire thing
| propped up. Our debt to GDP is out of control. Our federal
| government keeps borrowing and spending on things that are
| completely inneffective (and bragging they spent the most than
| any other country). My gloom and doom prediction is our currency
| is going to be absolutely worthless in two years time.
| u678u wrote:
| > I am not joking when I say that when the Canadian real estate
| markets crash - it is going to be absolutely disastrous for
| this country
|
| Sounds like half the world right now.
| throwawaysea wrote:
| Is it really that these cities are poorly managed or just that
| everyone feels entitled to live in the most expensive and
| desirable places? I don't get the point of building up more -
| it's just going to induce more demand (a common argument used
| by urbanists when it comes to road infrastructure). The real
| fix is that people need to spread out, and stop feeling like
| there are only two places to live in across such a large land.
| But no one wants to hear that they're not entitled to have the
| exact job/city/pricing/conditions they feel they deserve.
| waterlaw wrote:
| The problem is that Western countries in general now seem
| incapable of building new cities.
|
| Particularly Canada. Government policy has destroyed Northern
| Ontario. Everyone is crowding into Southern Ontario.
|
| The defining trait of modern Canada is doing less with more.
| This country has given up on building infrastructure. It's
| given up improving.
| imtringued wrote:
| >(a common argument used by urbanists when it comes to road
| infrastructure)
|
| This just proves that you don't know how housing works. I'm
| not even talking about the market itself. I'm just talking
| about the concept of being allowed to live in a building for
| money. You have to pay rent to live in a house/apartment.
| Alternatively you pay a mortgage or you buy the house
| outright.
|
| None of this applies to road infrastructure, you don't pay
| toll to use a wider road. It's a direct subsidy to people who
| like driving. You would have to be extremely stupid to not
| understand that wider roads will lead to more driving. There
| is nothing preventing you from using public infrastructure
| wastefully precisely because it's free. Free suffers from
| tragedy of commons, everyone knows that.
|
| If you use housing wastefully like by keeping it vacant you
| personally pay for this loss yourself. You're on the hook for
| your own behavior. People also get to decide whether they
| want denser apartments meanwhile the city planner forces road
| construction upon you whether your neighborhood really needs
| it or not.
| astrange wrote:
| > People also get to decide whether they want denser
| apartments meanwhile the city planner forces road
| construction upon you whether your neighborhood really
| needs it or not.
|
| This isn't really right, you're confusing 60s style city
| planning with the modern approach. 60s style "urban
| renewal" built a lot of freeways everywhere without asking
| and destroyed many poor neighborhoods. This caused a
| backlash and the start of urban environmental activism
| (e.g. SF getting rid of the Embarcadero highway), and urban
| planning switched to the exact opposite approach it uses
| now, which is to never do anything without 5000 community
| meetings.
|
| The result of this is... nothing ever happens, because the
| only people who show up to community meetings are retirees
| who don't want anything to change; nobody else has any free
| time. These people are less against roads than they are
| against houses though, because they mostly have no opinions
| other than hating traffic and liking free parking.
| DC1350 wrote:
| The entire concept of "affordable" housing makes no sense when
| even people with average incomes struggle to afford a decent
| quality of life. The government acts like people who only make
| 50-60k or less are middle class, but they don't even make
| enough to rent without roommates right now. Charity prices for
| minimum wage workers should be the last thing on their mind.
|
| The Canadian government is working as hard as they can to
| divide the country into owners who have homes that make more
| money than they do, and a permanent underclass of renters that
| can't possibly catch up with the price increases no matter how
| much of their money they save. Canada (or at least Southern
| Ontario and BC) is at a point where being born 5-10 years
| earlier is a bigger quality of life difference than the
| difference choosing to be a customer service worker or a
| lawyer.
|
| Toronto homes were up 30% through 2020. They doubled in the 5
| years before that. Being born 5 years earlier is the difference
| between renting with roommates forever, and being a home owning
| real estate millionaire. It's going to start creating really
| weird social dynamics soon.
| neom wrote:
| Instead of moving out, couldn't you get involved with politics
| and try to change things?
| njharman wrote:
| Voting with feet is often more impactful. Both for the cause
| and the idividual
| rohannair wrote:
| 3 million people live in Toronto. This is like asking if you
| can get into politics in Chicago and change things.
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| Of 3 million residents, maybe a few thousand - at most -
| will be full-time politically committed and active.
|
| The problem isn't the numbers, it's breaking into the
| patronage and power networks. That's not a numbers game.
| It's a relationship, influence, and networking game. And
| some elements will be corrupt, while others will be about
| carefully cultivated appearance management.
| _spduchamp wrote:
| We were so close to having ranked ballots for Toronto
| which is exactly what we need to improve accountabilituy,
| but Dougie scrapped that for all Ontario cities.
| Hopefully we'll get things back on track.
| https://www.unlockdemocracy.ca/123ontario
| https://www.rabit.ca/
| alexashka wrote:
| Forgive my naivete but yes, that's how change happens?
|
| If we look at social movements of the past century, they
| weren't easy on the members but many of them were
| successful in bringing about change.
|
| I don't know when it became fashionable to only do things
| that guarantee success within your lifetime and openly
| dismiss any other way of life but that's not how people who
| actually make a difference live.
| DC1350 wrote:
| It's a million times easier to just move away than it is
| to change anything about a global problem in a city with
| millions of people. Making a difference doesn't solve
| personal problems.
| alexashka wrote:
| Right. I have to wonder where people who don't work in IT
| will move away to and what they're going to do there.
|
| For IT folks, sure, pack your bags, go to a tropical
| community built for people with money and live in
| paradise. What about everyone else?
| neom wrote:
| Somebody who is frustrated shouldn't bother to get into
| politics or try to change things in big cities because..a
| lot of people live in them?? huh??
| david-gpu wrote:
| Becoming actively involved in politics is a quixotic
| endeavour with a high personal cost and very low chances
| of success. Moving out has much lower cost and much
| higher chances of solving your problem.
|
| Thank goodness some people get into politics anyway, but
| it is not a rational choice for a utility-maximizing
| actor.
| astrange wrote:
| It's actually not hard to get into local politics and you
| can certainly get things done. There's not a lot of
| competition or money involved and most people haven't
| figured out you can do it yet. Mainly what happens is
| older people will scream at you when you say you want a
| bike lane.
|
| It does take a lot of patience though; you won't get much
| done in the first year or two.
| snidane wrote:
| Isn't it the case everywhere in the world, in the post 2008
| crisis world, to have society's prosperity tied directly to the
| real estate bubble? Most exacerbated in metro areas.
|
| Only the most stupid politicians would want to kill the
| peoples' prosperity by popping the bubble, wouldn't they?
| rch wrote:
| As far as I can tell, the affordable housing movement has been
| broadly co-opted by developers who leverage grants and
| incentives to expand their portfolios of rent generating
| assets.
|
| Regulations which include language like "X% of units must be
| for renters making <80% AMI" appear positive, but often favor
| larger-scale, high-capital projects which exacerbate
| bifurcation in the housing market and drive even more stock
| towards the rental/high-HOA model, bundled with big-box retail
| and other commercial real estate nearby.
|
| There _is_ a genuine affordable (and equitable) housing
| movement, largely built on urban equity-cooperatives and
| community land trusts, but those promising efforts have been
| very effectively redirected into boosting opportunities for
| "master planned" real estate corporations.
| clairity wrote:
| > "Regulations which include language like 'X% of units must
| be for renters making <80% AMI' appear positive, but often
| favor larger-scale, high-capital projects..."
|
| yes, regulatory capture at work. any time a stipulation is
| prescriptive rather than (largely) descriptive, it's quite
| likely a mistargeted regulation. being numerical makes it
| seem objective, but despite that, it doesn't lead to the
| implied/explicit intent, which is more equitable housing.
| it's a token gesture meant to veil the true intent of
| benefiting, and concentrating power among, cronies.
| oftentimes, the rationale behind writing regulations this way
| is to create a clear delineation of what's acceptable and
| not, but the line is nearly always drawn in the wrong place
| and is hopelessly incomplete in scope relative to objective.
|
| it's the same class of deception as citing selective (i.e.,
| incomplete) statistics.
|
| what we need is to explicitly encourage human-scale ownership
| and development everywhere, through every means available,
| including zoning reform and tax policy.
| Tiktaalik wrote:
| > what we need is to explicitly encourage human-scale
| ownership and development everywhere, through every means
| available, including zoning reform and tax policy.
|
| People focus on the zoning a lot, but it really is the tax
| policy.
|
| Look around Vancouver and you'll see little three story
| walk up apartments all over. They stopped making them in
| 1993 because the incoming Liberal government adopted an
| incredible deficit slaying austerity approach which was in
| vogue at the time. The federal government completely got
| out of participating in housing at all. Beneficial tax
| policy that encouraged small apartment development was
| ended and since '93 pretty much the only thing that was
| built after was condos.
|
| Effectively the current housing affordability crisis in
| Canada can be traced back to this early 90s austerity
| decision. Nothing filled the void left by the government
| pulling away from housing development.
|
| The relatively much more spendy contemporary Liberal
| government has made lots of noises about housing
| investment, but they really haven't done much at all to
| undo the damage of the '93 Liberals.
| otoburb wrote:
| >> _They stopped making them in 1993 because the incoming
| Liberal government adopted an incredible deficit slaying
| austerity approach which was in vogue at the time._
|
| What was "in vogue" at the time was a Conservative (sic)
| Mulroney government routinely outspending revenues
| resulting in Canada's federal debt crisis in the early
| 90s[1][2] which helped usher in the Cretian government
| and Paul Martin's austerity measures. I think the
| austerity measures helped put Canada back on track.
|
| [1] https://tradingeconomics.com/canada/government-debt-
| to-gdp
|
| [2] https://www.fraserinstitute.org/sites/default/files/f
| ederal-...
| Tiktaalik wrote:
| This is true but there was a general wave of fiscal
| conservative liberalism at the time (see: Clinton,
| Blair).
| saeranv wrote:
| > Regulations which include language like "X% of units must
| be for renters making <80% AMI" appear positive, but often
| favor larger-scale, high-capital projects which exacerbate
| bifurcation in the housing market and drive even more stock
| towards the rental/high-HOA model, bundled with big-box
| retail and other commercial real estate nearby.
|
| I get that this model favor large-scale, high-capital
| projects, but, given that it explicitly set's aside X% for
| the <80% AMI, I don't see how it is also increasing
| inaffordability?
|
| Doesn't more density + some X% set aside for affordable units
| generally positive? Maybe we need to play around with that X%
| better, but what's the alternative?
| astrange wrote:
| Inclusive zoning (the X% of a building must be affordable)
| is good because it's important to mix different economic
| classes in the same area. It makes the poor people richer
| and it makes commutes shorter.
|
| When it gets high it's not a giveaway to developers. It's
| actually a backdoor way to ban housing construction; NIMBYs
| love to claim they want "real affordable housing" and then
| set the IZ requirement so high nobody can afford to
| actually create any.
| hourislate wrote:
| The Fed Gov and BoC have no choice but to keep interest rates
| at zero and continue to play with numbers to keep the ponzi
| going so the whole Country doesn't collapse. You also have to
| take into consideration that there is no where else to find any
| work but in the big cities.
|
| The whole damn situation is a mess with no way out. Feel sorry
| for the kids who finish a degree in STEM from Waterloo or UoT
| and end up working for 40k a year. They will never be able to
| afford a house and now all of Southern Ontario is getting
| pricey. Even houses in Barrie (an hour outside of Toronto) are
| over 500k.
|
| Article
|
| _A down payment on a Toronto house should take 24 years to
| accumulate_
|
| https://nowtoronto.com/lifestyle/toronto-real-estate-afforda...
| randomdata wrote:
| _> You also have to take into consideration that there is no
| where else to find any work but in the big cities._
|
| Where does that idea come from? Even before COVID-19 the job
| data was indicating that the hottest job markets were in
| (certain) small town/rural areas and that gap widened further
| once COVID-19 hit. The big city, especially Toronto with it
| being on lockdown for many months now, is where you're more
| likely to struggle to find work.
| andi999 wrote:
| "A down payment on a Toronto house should take 24 years to
| accumulate", reading the article this seems to be based on a
| severe case of dyscalculia. If the apartment costs 1 million
| and you want to save until you have 6% (which is 60k), and
| you only save 10% of your annual 170k salary, meaning you
| save 17k per year so after 3 years plus you have the down-
| payment. In addition to proper math one also should probably
| save a bit more per year.
|
| Edit: I am basically criticizing the article linked from the
| comment: https://nowtoronto.com/lifestyle/toronto-real-
| estate-afforda... Apart from the calculation wrong I also
| think the numbers/assumptions are not good
| [deleted]
| jdtbuchanan wrote:
| Not sure where you got the numbers but to buy a 1m condo in
| Toronto would require closer to 250k not 60k. And that
| isn't taking into consideration the condo will also be up
| 8-10% next year.
| andi999 wrote:
| My numbers are from the article linked in the post I
| answered to.
| elixirnogood wrote:
| I don't think you can get a mortgage with a 6%
| downpayment anymore. Canadian real estate is a scam.
| Banks would lend to anyone with a 5% downpayment. The
| mortgages are insured by the government (CMHC), so
| essentially all the taxpayers are on the hook if the real
| estate market implodes. Banks will be fine though as
| usual.
| DC1350 wrote:
| Anything over a million requires a 20% down payment. Also,
| prices doubled over the last 5 years so if trends continue
| then a million dollar home today will take a 400k down
| payment if it takes 5 years to save
| ttul wrote:
| Something makes me think that ain't gonna happen...
| winkeltripel wrote:
| But this is what's been happening. It's happening in the
| bay area too.
| hourislate wrote:
| I understand what your saying and it would be correct if
| prices were stable. The problem is that prices increase so
| rapidly and there is severe stagnation in salaries that you
| can't keep up. In OCT 2019 a Condo in a CO-OP I was looking
| at was selling for 350k. By Jan 2020 they were selling for
| 500k. It is not unusual for your 1-2 million dollar house
| to go up by 10-20 % a year.
| kitcar wrote:
| If you're saving using after-tax dollars, savings 10% of
| 170K top line is therefore not $17K.
|
| For interest, according to https://turbotax.intuit.ca/tax-
| resources/canada-income-tax-c... net on $170K is $111,547,
| meaning closer to $11K / year
| Terretta wrote:
| So, 23 years instead of 24? Or 3.5 years instead of 3?
| Your correction without conclusion doesn't seem helpful
| in deciding which calculation is least wrong.
| kitcar wrote:
| The math is $1,000,000 is the average price of a house in
| Toronto[1]. You usually need 20% down for a house at $1M
| or more[2]. Therefore you need $200,000 downpayment,
| which at $11K / year is about 18 years, assuming no
| compounding (which at least today is basically the case
| currently in Canada with interest rates where they are).
|
| It should be noted though that it is pretty rare to reach
| $175K salary in the GTA before turning 30 (Average
| household income in Toronto is sub $100K[3]). Therefore
| for the majority of people it will take more than 18
| years to build up that down-payment, which could be where
| the number in the article came from.
|
| [1] https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/average-gta-home-price-to-
| top-1-m.... [2] https://www.moneysense.ca/spend/real-
| estate/cmhc-tightens-mo... [3]
| https://www.toronto.ca/city-government/data-research-
| maps/to...
| andi999 wrote:
| Actually if you really want to save 60k with a net annual
| salary of 111k, you could do it in prob 2 years (cancel
| you Amazon account). Ard 6,500 CAD per month should be
| enough to live by, shouldn't it.
| [deleted]
| alexashka wrote:
| > The whole damn situation is a mess with no way out.
|
| I think there are definitely ways out, just not ones that
| please everyone involved.
|
| I for one don't even understand what Toronto as a city does
| (I've lived here for 20+ years).
|
| What valuable services does Toronto provide? I see bank
| skyscrapers downtown, some tourist attractions and a whole
| lot of people sitting in offices that need not be downtown,
| doing dubious work that largely need not be done or that can
| be automated with a bit of effort.
|
| Am I way off here? For me, it's not just real estate that's
| gone mad, it's the world economy that enables this crazy
| existence of cities that produce nothing and yet millions of
| people live in them.
| frongpik wrote:
| It offers the rich from China and other countries a safe
| place to park their money. Office workers are just
| decorations to make this place look legit.
| otoburb wrote:
| >> _Feel sorry for the kids who finish a degree in STEM from
| Waterloo or UoT and end up working for 40k a year._
|
| The starting salary for STEM grads seem to be well above 40K
| CAD, perhaps even >65K CAD [1].
|
| >> _A down payment on a Toronto house should take 24 years to
| accumulate_
|
| When you pair your linked article with the fact that the GTA
| has experienced net-positive population growth every single
| year since 1971[1] then it makes a little more sense why
| property prices have risen and continue to rise inexorably
| over the years.
|
| I also note that in your linked article a GTA condo
| downpayment can be accumulated within 4 years at the assumed
| 10% savings rate for a HHI of $124K CAD, and that's a
| 2-bedroom condo. If a new grad wants a starter property in
| the city then perhaps start with the purchase of a
| studio/1-bed.
|
| [1] https://www.canadastudynews.com/2017/11/30/stem-
| graduates-ea...
|
| [2] https://www.fin.gov.on.ca/en/economy/demographics/project
| ion...
| waterlooman wrote:
| >If a new grad wants a starter property in the city then
| perhaps start with the purchase of a studio/1-bed.
|
| This lacks the history on what people used to be able to
| purchase, not just in Toronto but in all of Southern
| Ontario, and now even as far away as the Maritimes.
|
| The purchasing power for the average Canadian to afford
| things that actually mater (like housing), is dropping like
| crazy.
|
| Allow me to give you my own anecdote. 12 years ago, I
| purchased a "starter home" in Waterloo for $249,000 in the
| neighborhood I grew up in. Detached with a single car
| garage, on my "new community college grad" salary of
| 47k/year with 25k of savings that I had.
|
| Today, with say a 60k/year salary, a new grad in my city
| could afford to live in a small "starter condo", a huge
| downgrade to ones expectations who wants to raise a family.
| The standard of living and affordability has objectively
| dropped for young people today.
|
| Last week a house on my street that is actually smaller
| than mine just sold for $780,000. I wonder what their
| mortgage is like?
|
| But according to some people, hey you can still get into
| the market! Just buy a condo!
|
| Now lets get to the meat of the issue. Why is this
| happening (and in many Western countries)?. Economic
| crashes are literally a built in guaranteed feature of our
| money system, but our government has found a way to kick
| the can down the road through mass immigration. As long as
| they can bring in half a million people in every year
| willing to take on debt, they think they can avoid a market
| correction, and they aren't wrong, they have avoided a
| correction for 12 years now thanks to the people they bring
| in on a daily basis in Canada. But this was not without a
| great cost, even if they can continue this nonsense for
| another 10 years, they have destroyed the purchasing power
| of your average Canadian to afford things that actually
| matter, like housing.
|
| I would argue that they found a way to avoid a crash by
| substituting that with a gradual decline of our standard of
| living. They stole from the young to pay for their pensions
| and nest eggs to avoid facing the music.
|
| Unfortunately, in many forums you can't bring up the
| elephant in the room if you are against mass immigration
| for its many downsides (including wage stagnation), you get
| denounced as a racist, or you get attacked by people who
| want this ponzy scheme to continue because after all, the
| economy now depends on it! They would rather you blamed the
| city for not building more condos (that noone wants to live
| in), and NIMBY's. But don't you dare bring up mass
| immigration.
| find wrote:
| (I'm actually immigrating to Toronto later this year.)
|
| I understand your frustrations over immigration policy,
| and it's certainly not racist to wish for Canadians to
| enjoy the fruits of Canada. I just want to gently bring
| up the historical context that you've left out, but of
| which you are likely aware. ~5% of Canadians are
| indigenous, and most humans in Canada descend from recent
| immigrants who came to pursue a higher standard of
| living. Barring other humans, born in a slightly
| different time and place, from that same pursuit: doesn't
| that seem to be in tension with history?
| dsomers wrote:
| Don't listen to this guy. I'm Canadian and lived in
| Toronto for eight years. Toronto housing is expensive
| because of lax lending, bad zoning, and bad regulations.
| That's it, Canadians are to blame for this. For an
| example Berlin is a similar physical size and population
| as Toronto, and has similar rate of high immigration, but
| has a lower cost of living relative to salaries. This is
| guy may not be racist, but he's doing the classic lazy
| thing of blaming newcomers when its really the locals
| that did this to themselves.
| bentlegen wrote:
| 13 years ago in 2008 the 5 year fixed interest rate on a
| mortgage was 4.45%. The following year in 2009 it was
| below 2% because of the great recession.
|
| Assuming you had that lower interest rate, I just want to
| illustrate that you may have been fortunate to have
| purchased at the exact best moment to buy property in
| North America, as home prices hadn't yet adjusted to the
| new purchasing power consumers had (in the form of lower
| interest rates).
|
| Also, unemployment was pretty high at the time, so while
| the job might seem meagre compared to today, you likely
| had a significant advantage vs. your underemployed peers
| in the region.
| bentlegen wrote:
| Looks like I was quoting variable rate figures, and not 5
| year fixed interest rates, which were substantially
| higher than their variable counterparts (7.15% in 2008,
| 5.79% in 2009).
|
| Source: https://www.superbrokers.ca/tools/mortgage-rate-
| history
| didibus wrote:
| What makes you think lowering the number of immigrants
| coming in would lower the prices of housing? Any thesis
| around it?
| DC1350 wrote:
| Econ 101?
| didibus wrote:
| I don't think it's as simple as that. I tried to look it
| up a little, found this: https://financialpost.com/real-
| estate/immigrations-impact-on...
|
| Which concludes:
|
| > Research in Canada has shown that the overall impact of
| immigration on housing markets is modest at best in most
| cases. The effect could be substantial in the case of
| wealthier immigrants destined to select neighbourhoods.
| The more important realization is that an absence of
| immigration would result in a declining population and
| ageing of the workforce, which could have a much larger
| negative impact on Canadian housing markets.
|
| I'm not saying that this conclusion is the right one, but
| I just feel it's actually a much more difficult ECON
| problem, and cause/effect and figuring out what is best
| overall is non trivial, and I don't know if wealthy
| immigrants and high-paid worker immigrants are the simple
| straightforward explanation we'd all want it to be.
| astrange wrote:
| If you're posting "Econ 101" or "supply and demand" in
| response to a question about people, whether it's labor
| or immigration, it means you're getting the wrong result.
| People who do this always forget to consider both supply
| and demand instead of just the one that makes you look
| more cynical.
|
| (Immigrants are a positive demand shock because they
| increase your customer base.)
| waterlooman wrote:
| We airdrop a population the size of Waterloo region
| (500-600k) of people into the country every year. They
| need somewhere to live. I don't think I need to say much
| more. I am aware that there can be other factors, but
| this is the (as I said) elephant no one wants to discuss
| publicly.
| didibus wrote:
| The 2020 stats say it's 250k, so not quite 500k/600k. But
| that's only the nominator, the population is aging and
| dying, and the birth rate is low, so the fact that 250k
| immigrants come in per year doesn't actually mean there
| is a need for more housing.
|
| So we have 300k deaths each year, 350k population growth
| of which 250k is immigrants, for a 1% YoY population
| increase.
|
| So you'd expect a need to grow housing by 1% and that
| would flatten prices, but it doesn't, so I feel there's
| more to it.
|
| > but this is the (as I said) elephant no one wants to
| discuss publicly
|
| I just did like 30min of googling, and almost all
| articles discussed immigration as a factor for Toronto
| high prices. So I'm not sure it's an elephant, it just
| doesn't seem like the simple explanation people want it
| to be. It isn't obvious at all that just lowering the
| number of immigrants the country accepts per year would
| have a drastic impact on Toronto prices. It seems there's
| many other factors at play. And you also need to consider
| all the other impact to the overall economy that lowering
| the number of migrants would have as well.
|
| I think people just don't really know, it's a hard
| problem, there's no clear solution, and so no one can
| come up with actionable remediations.
|
| One thing that I saw which might be a bigger elephant is
| the fact that old people don't downgrade, they stay
| occupying the single family residence they've owned for
| their entire retirement and end of life. Making no room
| for others. When they most likely no longer take
| advantage of the city or the extra space afforded by
| their home, and that limits the pool of homes
| dramatically. Especially considering Toronto has issues
| building more since land is scarce, and taxes are high
| for construction + zoning. I feel the thought was always
| that when you retire, you cash out your Toronto home, and
| downsize somewhere else cheaper, making room for others
| in Toronto, but this doesn't seem to be happening. And
| this is compounded with life expectancy growing year over
| year.
| otoburb wrote:
| >> _The standard of living and affordability has
| objectively dropped for young people today. [...] But
| according to some people, hey you can still get into the
| market! Just buy a condo!_
|
| I remember the frenzy of the '89 housing bubble & early
| 90's bust especially in Toronto when mortgage interest
| rates were in the low teens and everybody and their dog
| was flipping property. The subsequent crash was painful
| but also allowed new families to get into a more
| affordable market.
|
| I stand by my comment that it's still possible to buy
| _something_ for a new family even if it 's smaller than
| what they grew up with. The driver for the reduced
| affordability is, as you eloquently noted, because of our
| very liberal immigration policy that allows for continued
| regional growth coupled with low interest rates.
|
| If you're a homeowner, you want the value of your
| property to continue to rise. But then this crowds out a
| younger demographic looking to purchase their first
| starter properties (condos or houses). We can't have it
| both ways.
| elixirnogood wrote:
| I've lived in both Bay Area and Toronto. Toronto has
| become absurdly expensive. You can get a 3-4 bedroom
| modern townhouse in Dublin/Pleasanton for 850K USD. It's
| common for a senior software engineer to make 200-230K.
| You can't buy an equivalent housing in Toronto for 850K
| CAD. Crappy townhouses in Richmond Hill go for 900K - 1M+
| and similar housing will be 1.2 - 1.4M. it's also
| extremely difficult to make 200K+ CAD in Toronto (senior
| engineers make ~140K). A relative of mine does mortgages
| so has accurate statistics on how much people make.
| Aeolun wrote:
| Is 1% immigration per year a lot?
| OJFord wrote:
| Canada is crazily underpopulated compared to the UK for
| example - which is about the geographic size of.. what,
| Ontario alone maybe, but has double the population of all
| of Canada.
|
| So immigration is actively encouraged, which is perhaps
| unique among developed nations (depending only on our
| definition of 'actively encouraged' I suppose) which is
| probably 'correct' and could be massive for GDP, but..
| shouldn't there also be deliberate attempts to build new
| cities? My outsider's limited perspective is that it
| seems to be mostly left to natural progress, which
| means.. immigrants gravitate towards Vancouver & Toronto,
| and everywhere that exists just gets slightly bigger and
| much more expensive.
|
| Why isn't there massive intentional city building to go
| along with it?
| waterlooman wrote:
| I would guess because most of the land in this country is
| not arable (fertile) or hospitable, so even though we
| have lots of land, only the southern strip is worth
| populating.
| lhorie wrote:
| I don't think that's the reason. Barrie has a ton of
| farmland and it's just a hop away from Toronto. It's just
| that there's nobody incentivizing companies to put down
| headquarters in these smaller municipalities.
|
| Several decades ago, north of Steeles was prairies and
| farmlands. The IBM headquarters was moved to that area in
| the 80s. CGI headquartered in Markham as well. Nowadays
| there are condos going up all over the place along the
| 407 and hwy 7.
|
| If more companies did this instead of coveting to be as
| near union Station as possible, I believe the
| metropolitan area could still expand horizontally a great
| deal more before ever coming anywhere near permafrost.
|
| It doesn't even take that much willpower either. Milton,
| for example, could easily attract companies by offering
| tax breaks. A lot of talent already commutes from there.
| waterlooman wrote:
| Yes, this is extremely high. It is an exponential growth
| curve, not linear. What would that growth be after 25
| years of constant 1% growth/year?
| otoburb wrote:
| >> _What would that growth be after 25 years of constant
| 1% growth /year?_
|
| 1.01^25 = 1.282 or 28.2% growth. Sounds like a good bet
| to try to grow economic activity in the region if the
| immigrants are typically educated and are net-positive
| contributors.
|
| Canada's total fertility rate (TFR) is 1.47[1] which is
| well below the natural replacement rate of 2.1. I'm not
| blindly advocating that we grow at any cost, but it's
| important to note that as bad as the job situation seems
| to be across the country today, it feels like it would be
| much worse if our population continues to shrink
| indefinitely.
|
| Japan's stagnation over the past couple of decades seems
| to be one possible path that would have awaited us if
| Canada hadn't take steps to increase the population.
|
| [1] https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-
| quotidien/200929/dq200...
| waterlooman wrote:
| And if 28% population growth over 25 years results in
| insane housing affordability for younger generations, why
| are you still fine with that? I really don't understand
| this argument. You value total population growth and
| total economic growth over standard of living? Because
| with current trends it should be obscenely obvious that
| this approach isn't working.
|
| Population growth (at a much lower more sustainable rate)
| can be incentivized by literally paying people more money
| to have Children. And did it occur to you that perhaps
| our low birthrate has something to do with the increasing
| lack of opportunity to improve in this country?
|
| Finally, I am actually against the concept that the
| country must have constant population growth. Population
| growth comes in natural waves where some decades it will
| be high, and in others it will be low. The drop in
| birthrates many believe will cause a "sky to fall"
| scenario, which simply isn't true. It is parasitic to
| expect and demand constant population growth, especially
| at the cost of people's standard of living.
| otoburb wrote:
| >> _Population growth [...] can be incentivized by
| literally paying people more money to have Children._
|
| Some countries tried this approach with mixed results.[1]
| Given that we're both worried about the debt-to-GDP (i.e.
| profligate deficit spending by the federal and some
| provincial governments) I think the budgets are better
| spent attracting immigrants with skills, education and in
| many cases capital assets they bring to the country
| rather than baby bonuses.
|
| Quebec still pays a baby bonus[2] but a Stats Canada
| study[3] showed their fertility rate over four decades
| was only 1.59 vs. Ontario's 1.46 -- still well below a
| steady-state no-growth replacement rate of 2.1.
|
| >> _And did it occur to you that perhaps our low
| birthrate has something to do with the increasing lack of
| opportunity to improve in this country?_
|
| This plays a role, but a lot of economic thinking
| (rightly or wrongly) finds a strong correlation between
| how developed a country is and declining TFRs even when
| there is a boom period of economic growth and
| opportunity.[4][5][6]
|
| [1] https://www.prb.org/low-fertility-countries-tfr/
|
| [2] https://www.rrq.gouv.qc.ca/en/programmes/soutien_enfa
| nts/pai...
|
| [3] https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/75-006-x/2018001/
| article...
|
| [4] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4255510/
|
| [5] https://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/eve
| nts/pdf...
|
| [6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_and_fertility
| waterlooman wrote:
| I am not sure what you are showing other than that you
| believe our population growth from mass immigration needs
| to continue despite the negative outcomes.
|
| In 1985 our population was 25 million, and today it is
| now 38 million. Most of that population growth can be
| attributed to mass immigration. But we have no new cities
| or towns. We are simply crowding ourselves out of the
| minimal amount of cities and arable land along a southern
| strip that we can inhabit.
|
| Also I don't think Japan is a negative example of
| population decline. They are an example of a country
| being able to maintain its standard of living,
| productivity, and its economy despite a stagnant
| population.
|
| I strongly believe that if population growth through mass
| immigration continues (and mostly likely will), standards
| will continue to worsen across most of the country.
| otoburb wrote:
| >> _I am not sure what you are showing other than that
| you believe our population growth from mass immigration
| needs to continue despite the negative outcomes._
|
| Perhaps to put a more human perspective, I graduated with
| a STEM degree during a recession and it was horrible.
| Many classmates had their careers set back by many years.
|
| If I have to choose again between prosperity and economic
| growth that seems to be strongly correlated with a
| growing and educated population via immigration vs.
| affordable housing coupled with few economics
| opportunities, I'll choose the first option almost every
| time.
|
| There's no point being able to afford housing if there
| are no economic opportunities in the area. Detroit at its
| peak in the 1950s had a population of 1.8M and was the
| 5th largest city in America, but is now a shadow of its
| former glory due to various factors and it's population
| only 680K (37% of its peak). Incidentally, nearby Windsor
| seems to have experienced very gradual population growth
| (less than Toronto) but its economic prospects still look
| pretty bleak.
|
| It seems like you believe something like that could never
| happen to Toronto because the Golden Horseshoe is one of
| the few habitable places to live in Canada, in which case
| we'll just have to agree to disagree on this
| counterfactual.
| [deleted]
| dugditches wrote:
| There is work outside the cities in other fields.
|
| However, with all the people leaving the cities(it was an
| issue even before current 'work at home' situation, but even
| greater now) they push out local buyers.
|
| Wages outside the cities have stayed fairly stagnant(asides
| min. wage). And buyers simply can't compete with 'big money'
| coming from people having sold their property in a city.
|
| A quick glance at this makes one woozy. It feels after the
| '08 crisis just about everyone lost their lunch. However this
| modern crisis, it feels like upperclass got out ahead while
| lower classes simply lost. https://img.take-
| profit.org/graphs/indicators/money-supply-m...
| bentlegen wrote:
| I can't speak for every industry, but many Bay Area
| technology employers have set up satellite offices in Toronto
| and Waterloo and are paying significantly higher wages (note:
| I represent one of them). This is having a net effect of
| driving wages up; I see it in the candidates we lose to other
| companies who are doing the same. Consider looking for a new
| gig.
|
| Also, Sentry is hiring in Toronto: https://sentry.io/jobs.
| dheera wrote:
| Maybe they should consider doing an early cap on property
| taxes and property values before it becomes like the Bay
| Area where even if you work at Google you can't afford a
| house.
|
| There is rent control where I live, but no buy-house
| control, and there's almost nothing available below $2M
| USD.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| Prop 13 is arguably one of the reasons why Bay Area
| housing spun out of control, I don't think this would
| help much.
| DC1350 wrote:
| Google doesn't have an office in Toronto but Amazon
| employees don't make enough to buy houses. It doesn't
| matter though because most people in Toronto now make
| more money on real estate appreciation than they make
| from their jobs. Real estate gains are tax free so a
| modest 10% home price increase (it was 30% last year) is
| like earning at least an extra 150k pre tax
| dheera wrote:
| That's kind of sad though. It seems people own houses to
| sell them, instead of owning houses to own them.
|
| I feel like the whole point of owning a house is to
| customize it into a fairytale home of your dreams and
| never want to sell it. Otherwise I'd just rent.
| astrange wrote:
| You should read Henry George because you have the effect
| of LVT/property taxes exactly backwards. LVT is better
| than property taxes though, which have bad effects like
| sometimes motivating people to destroy their buildings to
| save on taxes.
| tocoder wrote:
| Unrelated to the post, at a previous gig, we used
| Sentry.io. Other than the first 45min wait time when you
| first hook it up to Sentry's API, it was a smooth
| experience. How do you like working at Sentry?
| ultrasaurus wrote:
| I'm not Ben, but I have worked with him for the last 2+
| years at Sentry. The whole Toronto office is super
| positive, and I love working with them every chance I
| get. Not to derail the thread too much but thanks for
| giving us a try and hopefully checking out the jobs page
| Ben linked to :)
| f6v wrote:
| Canada is a democracy though. If what you're saying is true,
| why won't residents elect a government that can do something?
| alacombe wrote:
| Why elect anybody beside t those giving you free lunch over
| free lunch ? Nobody cares about who's gonna foot the bill.
| bregma wrote:
| No one votes in municipal elections. It's what, a 25%
| participation rate? Cities like Toronto are run by a
| collection of special interest groups evenly divided into the
| developer-backed and BANANA-activist cliques, resulting in
| decades of deadlock.
| gurubavan wrote:
| Toronto 2018 - 41%
|
| Toronto 2014 - 55%
|
| Toronto 2010 - 51%
|
| --
|
| Boston 2017 - 29%
|
| Boston 2013 - 38%
|
| Boston 2009 - 31%
|
| --
|
| Chicago 2019 - 35% (first round)
|
| Chicago 2015 - 34% (first round)
|
| Chicago 2011 - 42%
|
| --
|
| NYC 2017 - 18%
|
| NYC 2013 - 13%
|
| NYC 2009 - <11%
|
| --
|
| LA 2017 - 20%
|
| LA 2013 - 23%
|
| LA 2009 - 18%
|
| --
|
| Vancouver 2018 - 39%
|
| Vancouver 2014 - 44%
|
| Vancouver 2011 - 35%
|
| --
|
| London 2016 - 45%
|
| London 2012 - 38%
|
| London 2008 - 45%
|
| --
|
| Tokyo 2020 - 55% (during pandemic)
|
| Tokyo 2016 - 60%
|
| Tokyo 2012 - 63%
|
| --
|
| Paris 2020 - 40% (during pandemic, lowest turnout on record
| ever)
|
| https://www.toronto.ca/311/knowledgebase/kb/docs/articles/c
| i...
|
| https://www.wbur.org/news/2017/11/08/voter-turnout-boston
|
| https://chicagoelections.gov/en/election-
| results.asp?electio...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_New_York_City_mayoral_el
| e...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_Los_Angeles_mayoral_elec
| t...
|
| https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/voter-
| turnou...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_London_mayoral_election
|
| https://www.france24.com/en/20200628-liveblog-low-turnout-
| in...
| foobiekr wrote:
| I would like to learn more about this. What are some sources I
| could look into?
| JanisL wrote:
| Look at the credit default swap markets, these gives you
| information into what people are actually willing to bet
| money on regarding currencies.
| fatsdomino001 wrote:
| Don't worry, conservatives will get in and fire-sale our
| natural resources to try and pay off the debt. It's like a
| horrifying good cop bad cop.
| thepasswordis wrote:
| Are there any cities where the citizens don't think the city
| council, government, etc is all "incompetent"?
|
| Like what is a city which is well functioning, where the
| citizens like the government?
| PoignardAzur wrote:
| The mayor of Paris (Anne Hidalgo) is relatively popular and
| respected by even her detractors.
|
| (not many members of the Socialist Party you can say that
| about these days)
| chubot wrote:
| That was my reaction on reading the parent comment too.
| However then I remembered that the mayor of Toronto was Rob
| Ford a few years ago:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rob_Ford
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Rob_Ford_video_sca.
| ..
|
| Boundaries have moved in recent years, but I think this
| behavior is still outside of normal for politicians.
| frosted-flakes wrote:
| Some cities do have good governments and high popularity
| ratings, to the point where politicians get fairly re-elected
| for decades straight. Mississauga (part of the GTA) is
| apparently one of them, because Hazel Mccallion served as
| mayor for 36 years straight and only stopped because she was
| 93. I'm not exactly sure why she was so popular (I'm not from
| there), but her endorsement is still mayor 6 years later, so
| they must be doing something right.
| otoburb wrote:
| >> _It 's one of the most expensive cities to live in in the
| world, [...]_
|
| Toronto was ranked as the 98th most expensive city in the
| world; not even in the top 50, even though it's the 4th largest
| city in North America.
|
| Perhaps it's more accurate to say that Toronto and Vancouver
| are unaffordable and expensive cities _for domestic Canadians_
| to live in.
|
| >> _Our debt to GDP is out of control. Our federal government
| keeps borrowing and spending on things that are completely
| inneffective (and bragging they spent the most than any other
| country). My gloom and doom prediction is our currency is going
| to be absolutely worthless in two years time._
|
| Canada's debt-to-GDP is 88%[2], but the USA's debt-to-GDP is
| 127%[3] and climbing. You remember the ol' saying: when America
| sneezes, Canada catches a cold. The largest destabilizing
| factor to Canada's economy is likely to be problems with their
| largest trading partner.
|
| [1] https://www.mercer.com/newsroom/2020-cost-of-living.html
|
| [2] https://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/countries-by-
| nat...
|
| [3] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GFDEGDQ188S
| ghaff wrote:
| >Perhaps it's more accurate to say that Toronto and Vancouver
| are unaffordable and expensive cities for domestic Canadians
| to live in.
|
| Yes, the numbers in that first link are in the context of
| expats. But even with remote work likely becoming more
| common, it's more meaningful in general to think about cost
| of living with respect to local salaries because that's what
| people living in a city are earning.
| moufestaphio wrote:
| >> Toronto was ranked as the 98th most expensive city in the
| world; not even in the top 50.
|
| So, I'm not going to look into different methodologies that
| are used, but Toronto is often ranked near the top of least
| affordable cities.
|
| For example: http://demographia.com/dhi.pdf
| otoburb wrote:
| >> _Toronto is often ranked near the top of least
| affordable cities._
|
| When the only factor is home ownership, which is the focus
| of URI's study, this is absolutely correct. But then I
| think back to how absolutely unaffordable housing was
| across the GTA in the late 80s, after which point people
| were able to buy back in again when the housing market
| corrected 40% in most of the GTA, with certain areas of
| Toronto (not the GTA) dropping by over 50%.
|
| Homeowners generally want housing prices to rise
| indefinitely, but this is in direct opposition to younger
| cohorts wanting affordable entry points to home ownership.
|
| The URI study also doesn't mention anything about renting.
| There are rumbles that Toronto developers have built too
| many properties (condos primarily), so perhaps an
| oversupply will benefit both renters and potential
| homebuyers if/when property prices correct.
| dsomers wrote:
| Condos built in Toronto are mostly terrible for anyone
| that's not single. They're basically Airbnb speculation
| boxes in the sky. The city suffers badly from "the
| missing middle" problem because of bad zoning. It's a big
| part of why I moved away after living there 8 years.
| [deleted]
| astrange wrote:
| Speculation up in the sky isn't really a problem since a)
| it's a tax base b) it's not hurting you since it doesn't
| take up land c) a condo is strictly cheaper than a house
| on the same land.
|
| If housing is expensive it's because there aren't enough
| houses or the land is too expensive, and it's true that
| much of this is due to zoning and similar restrictions
| like parking minimums.
| dsomers wrote:
| It is hurting families because mostly only small 1
| bedroom apartments get built which are more attractive to
| Airbnb investors. However zoning is probably the biggest
| problem, yes. Far too much of the city is zoned for
| single family housing.
| cobookman wrote:
| Toronto is expensive given the amount jobs are paying in the
| area.
|
| SF a condo might be 1M, but getting paid 250k+ for a job is
| fairly common.
|
| In Toronto the condo might be 1M (CAD), but getting paid
| 250k+ CAD is not common.
|
| By all accounts Toronto is more expensive than SF
| bentlegen wrote:
| A cursory look at condo prices on any website* shows that
| most condos are well below $1M CAD. A 1 bedroom can be had
| in the downtown core for 600-700k, and significantly lower
| if you don't mind commuting from Scarborough or Etobicoke.
|
| Also, interest rates are 1% lower in Canada (albeit on
| shorter terms), and property taxes are roughly half.
|
| This isn't to say that homes are "cheap", but there's more
| to the story.
|
| (Aside, I have lived in both cities for a considerable
| number of years.)
|
| https://www.zolo.ca/toronto-real-estate/sold
| andrecp11 wrote:
| Which city did you enjoy more and why? As someone who has
| entertained moving to either one day from Vancouver/Bc,
| am very curious!
| andrecp11 wrote:
| > SF a condo might be 1M, but getting paid 250k+ for a job
| is fairly common.
|
| If you're in tech of course. SF and Toronto have many other
| professionals living in. How's the median salaries
| comparing?
| lhorie wrote:
| My understanding is that there's a lot of foreign capital
| getting parked in real estate in Toronto. I believe they
| were going to implement a vacancy tax similar to Vancouver
| next year to try to curb that
| dsomers wrote:
| There's not a lot of evidence that it's not the locals
| creating a bubble because of speculation and lax lending.
| If you don't believe me look up how nicely private
| mortgage debt in Canada correlates with the growth in
| housing prices in Canadian cities. Canadians hold one of
| the highest rates of personal debt in the OECD.
| lhorie wrote:
| That's actually a really good point to ponder about. I've
| seen a number of news articles about predatory practices
| among real estate agents (I believe many hog anywhere
| from 3 properties or more to ride the bubble, there's
| unethical abuse of dual representation, there's bid
| secrecy, etc)
|
| No doubt, there's also a great deal of greed and wealth
| signaling from the general population (especially among
| upper middle class) as well. Competition around high
| ranking school areas comes to mind. Not to mention rental
| properties are pretty much the go-to choice of passive
| income building that most people go for.
|
| I would bet that if multiple property ownership was
| penalized by high taxes, real estate prices would come
| down real fast.
| [deleted]
| throwaway8581 wrote:
| The US situation is bad but also unique because of guaranteed
| demand for the dollar for at least the short to medium term.
| So you can't really compare the numbers. Other countries
| don't control the printing press for the world reserve
| currency.
| akamaka wrote:
| Are you from r/canada? For those not familiar, this is a
| typical example of the angry reddit posts on the topic of
| housing prices that get produced daily.
|
| I was going to post a rebuttal, but you can go there to see
| this same debate repeated a thousand times over.
| neom wrote:
| I don't think it's just a Canadian thing, I do live in
| Toronto and I do hear this rant _all the time_ - however, I
| also heard this exact same rant when I lived in NYC, Seoul,
| Edinburgh.
| akamaka wrote:
| It seems to be a Canadian thing to not realize it's
| happening all over the world.
| belval wrote:
| This is not a very constructive reply, how about you give us
| the rebuttal?
| akamaka wrote:
| https://www.google.ca/search?q=personalfinancecanada+house+
| p...
|
| There are literally thousands of threads that repeat the
| same arguments over and over. The original poster may as
| well be quoting any of them without any new insight into
| the economics behind it.
|
| Once you've been on reddit for a while, you realize how
| pointless it is to engage in these discussions since people
| only bring in their emotions and not much data.
| humanorgan wrote:
| This is not a rebuttal. Please give an actual rebuttal.
| vvG94KbDUtRa wrote:
| Like yourself for instance
| KingOfCoders wrote:
| Those plans were smart, they made Google richer. Not sure why
| people can't see this, that what a company wants is getting
| richer. They don't care about you.
|
| Some people know this but want to out-cheat Google. The results
| are always the same. They are the pros, not you.
| overton wrote:
| Toronto needs to build more housing, period. It doesn't need to
| be "smart", it doesn't need to be "iconic", there just needs to
| be a lot of it and it needs to be close to amenities and jobs. As
| far as I can tell, the reason this is so difficult is a
| combination of powerful people making boatloads of money off the
| restricted supply, and inertia in favour of the low-density
| zoning that covers most of the city.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| It is also unhelpful that transit in Toronto is packed to the
| gills, and so outer areas that are on a transit line that could
| also take development are basically full.
|
| I will believe that the hemming and hawing over whatever the
| Ontario Line/Downtown Relief Line is going to be is over when
| there are shovels in the ground, but until then, Line 1 is
| packed to the gills, and the future extensions north are not
| helping.
| sneak wrote:
| There is a third option: a fully automated, smart sensor city
| that _isn 't_ built by an ad company that wants identity-linked
| behavioral profiles above all else. It's just as technically
| possible as the Google-shadow-profile one.
|
| Sadly I don't think those will be built in my lifetime.
| blakesterz wrote:
| "To bet the farm on technology that redesigns our entire streets
| and relies on apps and sensors doesn't really jive with how human
| beings actually use public spaces - and how they want to live in
| cities."
| [deleted]
| pseudolus wrote:
| I'd take issue with "betting the farm". Toronto proper is, per
| Wikipedia 243.32 sq mi, and the land in question totals 12
| acres. Granted, Google may not have been the best partner but
| foregoing the opportunity to build a technology centered city
| seems like a lost chance to determine whether or not that
| particular form of architecture is viable - not only for
| Toronto for other cities as well. A fear of failure and a fear
| to experiment will end up limiting future horizons.
| 177tcca wrote:
| > Google may not have been the best partner
|
| After how they acted in New York City, I can't believe any
| city would even pick up their calls.
| dantillberg wrote:
| Could you describe what Google did in New York City for
| those of us not in the loop?
| 177tcca wrote:
| https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/nyclu-citys-public-
| wi-fi...
|
| http://rethinklink.nyc/
| Craighead wrote:
| Go ahead, how did Google act in nyc
| jimmaswell wrote:
| Politicians like these are why innovation is so slow. Google was
| primed and ready to try something new but it was just too
| different for these people to handle. I don't even like every
| aspect of the Google city plan but it would have been an
| invaluable experiment.
| routerl wrote:
| Sorry, but the politicians were largely on Google's side,
| sharing your absolutely ignorant enthusiasm. It took a massive,
| years-long grassroots campaign of engineers, residents,
| security researchers, urban planners, ethicists, etc etc, for
| us to finally amass enough political capital to pressure our
| elected representatives into actually, you know, representing
| us.
|
| > it would have been an invaluable experiment.
|
| That's the point. There are proven solutions to the problems
| this city faces, with long histories of being researched in
| universities and implemented elsewhere. These are the things we
| need, not "experiments". We are the fourth largest city in
| North America, not a test ground for American "innovation".
| riskneutral wrote:
| > invaluable experiment
|
| Why would we want our city, homes and public places, to be
| turned over to an "experiment?" And not just an experiment, but
| an experiment conducted by a corporation? And not just a
| corporation, but a foreign corporation that doesn't even have
| any significant presence here offering us decent jobs (and is
| instead one the leading causes of our "brain drain" problem)?
| Even if this experiment is invaluable (I can't imagine how it
| is), the majority of the value from experimenting would accrue
| to Google (experiments are valuable if they can be repeated
| many times after learning something new, and while Google could
| learn from the mistakes and repeat the experiment in a
| different city, Toronto would not be able to tear down the
| "smart city" to repeat the experiment). No great city in this
| world has been built on gimmicky technologies that will become
| obsolete. Just look at "smart homes" that were built 20+ years
| ago (e.g. installing speakers throughout the house etc), all
| the technology becomes an obsolete eyesore that eventually gets
| ripped out.
| lupire wrote:
| And if they paid the guinea pigs industry standard rates of
| about $100/day for joining the experiment, maybe it's a good
| idea.
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| It's not that it was "too different", it's that it was "too
| evil". Google was trying to use public resources to build a
| Google-owned neighborhood where they controlled the lives of
| everyone within, and were interested in being able to levy
| their own taxes and exempt themselves from existing laws.
| umeshunni wrote:
| Lol, did you just make that up?
| routerl wrote:
| He did not make that up.
|
| https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/15/alphabets-sidewalk-labs-
| want...
| PoignardAzur wrote:
| This is arguing in bad faith.
|
| The article talks about
|
| > _proposed taking a portion of Toronto property taxes,
| development fees and increased land value to build a
| smart city on the eastern waterfront [...] which would
| amount to an estimated $6 billion over 30 years_
|
| 6 billion dollars isn't astronomical for a major urban
| development project.
|
| And Google being paid based on increases in property
| taxes gives them an incentive to increase the value of
| the land, which is _the exact incentive the city would
| want them to have_.
|
| There's a huge gap between the article you link and OP's
| claim that Google was "interested in being able to levy
| their own taxes and exempt themselves from existing
| laws".
| routerl wrote:
| > Google being paid based on increases in property
| taxes...
|
| ... isn't what the article or Alphabet were talking
| about. They were discussing being paid property taxes,
| period, not simply taking the property tax delta caused
| by their real estate development.
|
| And anyway, if I buy a house and pay property taxes, then
| improve the property so that my property taxes increase,
| I don't get to keep that increase. Why should Alphabet?
| But _even this_ is less radical than what Alphabet was
| proposing, as I've explained above. Alphabet was directly
| seeking a subsidy from the city, to be taken as a
| percentage of property taxes.
|
| You may not think of this as unacceptable, in which case
| I wish you luck attracting such an offer to your own
| city. But over here, we don't want it.
| beckman466 wrote:
| Why do you think corporations using black-box technology on
| human guinea pigs in a city-size scale is an exciting
| 'experiment'?
|
| Innovation is slow because science is constantly commoditized
| and recommoditized using violent means by a partnership between
| capitalist politicians and capitalist firms; the 'intellectual
| property' system is the tool (trade secrets > copyrights >
| patents).
| mymythisisthis wrote:
| Innovation is slow because many of the new technologies
| aren't that transformative.
|
| Some technologies are very transformative. The Internet in
| 1990s killed much of the paper based printing. When was the
| last time someone bough a physical accounting ledger? A
| newspaper? A printed calendar? An encyclopedia? But, it
| doesn't take long for people to internalize the change, and
| go about their daily lives. Not thinking about what happened.
|
| Most technologies are just incremental changes. Or, new
| digital technologies slapped onto old brick and mortar
| hardware, as upgrades.
| ghaff wrote:
| We're fairly far into the Internet era at this point but I
| imagine that even many of the people who lived through the
| transition appreciate just how different the world is today
| from the mid-1990s, 25 years ago.
|
| Most didn't have Internet--and for those who did we're
| mostly talking about things like Usenet. Many didn't even
| have cell phones, much less Gen 1 smartphones. Most were
| still navigating using paper maps and written directions.
| There was very little ecommerce. Many didn't even have home
| computers, much less broadband. TV was mostly still
| something you watched in a scheduled way unless you
| programmed your VCR. Etc.
| logifail wrote:
| > When was the last time someone bough[t] a physical [..]
| newspaper?
|
| Sorry to sound like I'm stuck in a timewarp but we pay for
| our local newspaper to be delivered three days a week, it's
| waiting on the doorstep at 6am, I read it as I drink my
| first coffee.
|
| I could also read the articles online, but the actual
| physical version is definitely better for our purposes.
|
| Q: Is there really no-one else here doing this?
| coffeefirst wrote:
| Ever notice that for every problem, Google's first answer is 1.
| big data, 2. apply AI?
|
| I don't even mean to be snarky. If you're a hammer company full
| of hammer experts, you're going to see a lot of nails.
|
| One of the interesting city planning concepts I've seen is to
| build the houses with their backs to the roads. You still have
| a place for cars/deliveries/logistics, but it also forms a
| walkable neighborhood that's designed for people. I've seen
| some small developments based on this--it feels like a big
| park, and the only real side effect was the coffee shop needed
| a second public facing door.
|
| There's lots of cool stuff from architects and material
| scientists that's worth building, but the longer I work in
| software, the more I'm convinced that sometimes we should look
| at a thing and conclude we are not the most qualified people to
| improve it.
| jcranmer wrote:
| Just like the wonderful experiments of Fordlandia, EPCOT, and
| Pullman? Hell, if you want to look at the broader theme of
| companies running entire _countries_ , look at the
| mismanagement of the British East India Company.
|
| The history of such projects rather weighs against the Google
| project being any better, particularly given the proclivity of
| many in the tech world to have the arrogance to believe that
| they know more about other fields than those who work in those
| fields.
| Jemm wrote:
| All this talk about the area and no mention that the land in that
| area is full of toxic pollution from decades of industrial abuse.
| u678u wrote:
| I live on an area that was toxic wasteland. Its just paved over
| and lots of condos built, full of families. Its like living in
| a shopping mall, you're so removed from the dirt it isn't
| really an issue.
| dade_ wrote:
| Which is Waterfront Toronto's actual mandate, clean up the
| land, build the infrastructure, sell it to developers aligned
| to the vision. Instead they got all whimsical and got the idea
| in their heads that they are going to change the world. Fooled
| by the FAANG. They need to get back to their knitting, not
| become social justice eco-warriors. Otherwise this whole
| project will fail and we will end up with a damned casino with
| a monorail.
| konjin wrote:
| Yes, but failing upwards is what social justice eco-warriors
| do best. Just look at every city they have managed for more
| than a decade.
| JanisL wrote:
| What do you mean by "failing upwards" exactly?
| inglor_cz wrote:
| Not the OP, but in Europe, Ursula von der Leyen is a
| great example. Even though she isn't a green eco warrior,
| but a colorless Merkel ally. She screws up and keeps
| getting higher and higher positions.
| mymythisisthis wrote:
| Ironically Toronto already had a floating restaurant called
| Captain Jacks. At the base of Yonge St. The Port Authority
| and the Owner could not come to an agreement on money owned
| for use of the slip. The owner packed in after a good run for
| a couple of decades. The vintage ship was towed away, and
| hacked up for scrap. Toronto was left without a good
| restaurant on the water.
| routerl wrote:
| It's hilarious for me to see
|
| > Toronto was left without a good restaurant on the water
|
| which should actually be
|
| > The business owner was either unwilling or incapable of
| making his business succeed.
| logifail wrote:
| Q: Is there any kind of open market in moorings?
|
| If a normal restaurant gets threatened with a big rent
| hike, they can close at one location and open up
| somewhere else.
|
| Does that approach work if you're effectively renting
| your location from the Port Authority?
| routerl wrote:
| Of course it does. There are many, many cities by the
| water.
|
| Oh, his boat couldn't be moved? Is that somehow an
| imposition on him by the city, or simply lack of
| forethought?
|
| This guy put his own back against a wall.
| logifail wrote:
| > There are many, many cities by the water
|
| I had kind of assumed that if you have to move, one would
| typically aim to move _within one city_ - if you are
| trying to keep your customers, that is...
| mymythisisthis wrote:
| The prices are set by the Toronto Port Authority.
|
| From what I remember, there was a a group of investors
| that wanted to purchase the boat, modernize it, make it
| into a really swanky, multi-purpose, venue, on the water.
| But by that point the Port Authority and owner had been
| fighting for so long that mediation/intervention wasn't
| possible.
|
| It could be argued the Port Authority was charging him
| too much, perhaps just to get him to go. And that the
| owner was getting old, the best days of his restaurant
| were 30 years ago.
| dade_ wrote:
| The man was a crook and the restaurant was terrible, but
| he was very successful at not paying taxes. After years
| in dispute, I was there to cheer the tug to tow that dump
| away. Then the city erected a monument to commemorate
| him!
|
| https://www.blogto.com/city/2013/10/city_of_toronto_tells
| _ca...
| dade_ wrote:
| "We're often easily distracted by the idea of something new and
| flashy, but then we learn it's quite hard to deliver on those
| promises"
|
| From one new and flashy fad to the next. In 10 years, when this
| plan fails, they will point out that they "learn it's quite hard
| to deliver on those promises":
|
| "Instead, the new plan centres on affordability, low-carbon
| design and an emphasis on local and minority-owned businesses."
| Semiapies wrote:
| I was weirdly amused that the article want into so much detail
| about the Google plan (when it's been dead for a year) and gave
| just meaningless buzzword puffery about what they're going to do
| instead.
| [deleted]
| burlesona wrote:
| Cool, so after ten more years of planning and twenty to thirty
| years of phased development, this will all have made exactly zero
| difference to Toronto or anyone who lives there.
| Elessar wrote:
| Toronto has a history of planning to do something with its
| waterfront (Port Lands / Quayside etc), and then never enacting
| those plans due to short-term politics vs actual vision. This is
| just more of the same.
|
| This article is reading far too much into Google. I suppose it is
| the trend to get eyeballs by hating on tech giants.
|
| Enjoy this article about a monorail - from 2011.
| https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/toronto-mayor-unveils...
| throw0101a wrote:
| > _Toronto has a history of planning to do something with its
| waterfront (Port Lands / Quayside etc)_
|
| Besides the fact that a brand new island is being built:
|
| * https://portlandsto.ca/construction/
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Villiers_Island
|
| > _Enjoy this article about a monorail - from 2011._
|
| How many people took Doug Ford seriously about anything?
| peeters wrote:
| *Rob Ford
| sebastien_bois wrote:
| Frankly, either "Doug" or "Rob" applies equally.
|
| (For those not in the know - Rob Ford was a former mayor of
| Toronto, whom was not known for being a particularly smart
| or nice person; Rob Ford died a few years ago. Doug Ford is
| his brother, and is the current Premier of Ontario. Doug is
| definitively less of an embarrassment, but only "less".)
| throw0101a wrote:
| Ah yes, in the article.
|
| Though his brother Doug, the current premiere of Ontario,
| isn't that much better.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2021-03-13 23:02 UTC)